The Sweet Sound of Long Vowels {Freebie}

I'm sitting here again tonight wondering whether I'll wake up tomorrow to yet another blanket of snow. Snow days are great! But only when the stress is taken out of it. I mean, there's nothing more stressful than watching the snow come down and not knowing whether you need to start out for school or not. There's added stress for me because:

• I don't have just one school, so need to check all the schools for closures
• I am seriously phobic of driving in the snow and ice. Seriously, I mean pho-bic. I actually have baaaaad panic attacks which I suppose makes me more of a hazard to other road users than all that snow and ice.

It's been quite bad here over the last few days but I know we've had it easy compared to some. This weekend the boiler decided it would be a great time to break down! No heat all weekend! I've been sleeping in pyjamas, socks, dressing gown, scarf, mittens, hat and hottie! To cap it all, when we tried to plug in a few electric heaters on Saturday evening, the fusebox in the house melted! So we made the call to the power company and were without electricity too for most of Saturday night. All back to normal now, but what a weekend! I almost ran out and booked into a hotel! All that cold made me think about those poor souls who find themselves homeless at this time of year. I'd desperately love to help but don't know how. Makes you feel so inadequate, so grateful for what we've got - and so ungrateful for moaning...

So I haven't managed to get my car moving since last Thursday. I've been on foot and reliant on lots of lifts for the last few days - painful! My poor little car is struggling in this cold weather. Sure, I've turned it over a few times just to keep it warmed up, but it's been having problems starting for a few weeks now {note to self: change car battery}. This morning it just wasn't having any of it. As much as I tried it just wouldn't fire up. Poor old girl! Eventually, after much coaxing, I managed to persuade it to turn over. 

Walking to numerous schools laden with papers, books, supplies (I am my own walking classroom...) etc is not much fun - especially when you live at the top of a mountain! So I've been keeping it simple - off plan as it were (there's nothing like winging it once in a while to keep you on your toes...). This week we've been working on phonics. Easy? Nooooooo. Not so easy when your children are all at different stages of their phonic development. Some children are still working on basic phonemes (that's the easy part). Others are just starting out on digraph blends - or "special friends" as we call them ("best mates" for the older children). Children always need a helping hand with the different ways of spelling the same sounds, and always have problems with split digraphs. So I came up with a little something to help. Knowing how much they love word games, I pulled together "Sweet Sounds" - a phonic word sort game bundle . It's 43 pages full of long vowel words, sorts cards and recording sheets. There is one separate pack for each long vowel sound - perfect for literacy centres. This one has a sweet Valentine theme, but will soon be available in lots of different themes (let me know if you can think of a particular theme).

Packs are also available separately. I'm making the Long A pack a FREEBIE until 8pm tomorrow evening (GMT) so snag your copy now by clicking on the Long A picture below.

Stay safe and warm.